The Dorothy Restaurants

Isabel Cooper-Oakley, the ‘personification of the New Woman of the eighties’, founded her Dorothy Restaurants in the late 1880s.  A theosophist who attended Girton College in Cambridge, Cooper-Oakley started the restaurants when her millinery business founded.  These restaurants were for women only.  One of the restaurants was for ladies and the other was intended to be for working women.

The first Dorothy Restaurant on Mortimer Street, decorated with cream-coloured walls, Japanese fans and umbrellas, may have been the one for shop girls and other women who were employed in the city.  Here they could eat cheap, wholesome fare, after paying an eightpenny dining ticket at the entrance.

The exotically-dressed and beautiful Constance Wilde and other celebrated women attended the opening of the second Dorothy Restaurant on Oxford Street in 1889.  Many of them apparently smoked while they waited to enter.  This restaurant was much more lavish.  It was decorated with rich Indian curtains, a deep red ante-room and it also featured a large luncheon room with tables covered with pristine white tablecloths and vases of fresh flowers.  Obviously the one for ladies!

Our Australian Titanic Heroine

Evelyn James, nee Marsden was a true Australian heroine.  A stewardess on the Titanic, she played a large part in helping the passengers on Lifeboat 16 stay safe.

Born in South Australia in 1883, Evelyn was brought up in the remote town of Hoyleton.  When she was a teenager, she stayed with a farming family at Murray Bridge where she learned to row and joined the rowing club. She even learned to row against the tide, a difficult feat which would prove useful. 

The country girl, ambitious to have a career, worked as a nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.  She then decided to travel, an unusual desire for a single woman in those days.  She travelled to England and fell in love with the ship’s doctor, Dr James, on the voyage.  She joined the White Star Line to be with her young and handsome boyfriend. However, just before the voyage of the Titanic, Dr James was transferred, and Evelyn sailed alone.

The 28 year-old shared a cabin with Miss May Sloan, and worked as a stewardess.  She also did some nursing work for the First Class passengers.  Shocked by the collision, the women accepted soothing glasses of whiskey and water from the ship’s doctor.  After this, Evelyn hurried up to the deck where she helped as many people as she could into lifeboats, not thinking of her own safety.  She was one of the last to get into Lifeboat 16.

The nurse helped row the passengers to safety, even though she had to hold a baby.  Her great-nurse said that her hands were rubbed raw from rowing.  Evelyn was so thankful that she had learned to row, she returned to the farm to thank the family for teaching her.

When the news that Evelyn had been saved by the Carpathia, and that she was safely in New York, legend has it that her father ran through the town shouting, “Evelyn’s alive. Evelyn’s alive”.

Julian Fellowes told Channel 7 that: 'Of course, if the doctor hadn't been taken off the Titanic, he woul've died because the highest death rate was among second-class men, almost all of whom died, and the doctor would have been travelling in second class'.

Dr William James and Evelyn rushed to the altar, marrying in July in Southampton.  They returned to South Australia.  Sadly, they didn’t have any children, but Evelyn’s relatives are very proud of their Titanic heroine.

Site of the Week. Stalking the Belle Epoque

Joseph Crisalli is in search of beauty, elegance and grace, qualities which are difficult to find in this crass modern era.  This Punch and Judy man, who lives with his cute terrier, Bertram Wooster, and his puppet, Mr Punch, has made it his mission to share something beautiful from past eras every day on his wonderful blog.

Today he has a post about the beautiful Queen Alexandra's Faberge knife. This is a fine example of his posts, which always transport one to elegant past eras.

The Brave Countess on the Titanic

My new article on Suite 101: The Brave Countess on the Titanic.

Douglas Tompkins, A Jungian Psychotherapist in New York

Jungian psychotherapy is designed to help people who are feeling stuck or suffering. If you are experiencing stress or difficulties, such as burnout or overwhelming grief, Jungian therapy may help you.  Douglas Tompkins, M.Div., L.P., NCPsyA, is a psychotherapist in New York who specializes in Jungian therapy. If you live in New York, he may be able to assist you.

Douglas Tompkins provides an initial consultation to see whether a positive relationship is possible.  It is very important in Jungian analysis to have a positive relationship with the client.  After this consultation, visits are usually scheduled once a week.  These consultations assist people to come to terms with their inner truths.  This is often achieved partly by exploring the meaning of the clients' dreams.  Jungian therapy helps people to heal their divided souls so that they can think in a clear way and fight life's battles with healthy minds in a resilient way.

Why not ring Douglas Tompkins, a Jungian psychoanalyst in New York, today?

Another Great Survivor, Violet Jessop

Violet Jessup was another great survivor.  She survived TB as a child as well as two shipwrecks, including the Titanic! She also lived to a ‘ripe old age’.  Strangely, Jessop’s story has been somewhat ignored in movies about the great ship.

Born in 1887 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jessop was the oldest of five brothers and sisters.  Her parents were Irish.  Her mother came from a wealthy Dublin family who lived in smart Merrion Street.  Her father was a sheep farmer.

The family moved to England when Jessop was quite young and she went to a convent school.  However, after her father died and her mother became ill, the young girl realised that she’d have to go to work.  She decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and work as a stewardess.  This was the start of a long career on board ships.

Jessop was only 21 and her attractiveness was often regarded as a potential problem because it might attract unwanted attention from passengers.  Petite with grey-blue eyes and auburn hair, Jessop had to dress in drab clothes and wear no makeup when she went to one job interview.  She got the position.

Her first job was on the Orinoco in 1908.  In 1910 she moved to the Majestic.  She had to work 17 hour days for low wages on this ship.  She was on the Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke.  Luckily, both ships were able to limp back to port.

Although Jessop received several proposals from passengers, she only had one romance.  This was with a warm-hearted, but opinionated Australian engineer called Ned.  Unfortunately, he didn’t want to get married until he was promoted.  This was a long way away and the pretty young stewardess didn’t want to wait.

Jessop liked serving on the Olympic but friends persuaded her to join the Titanic even though she was concerned about the rough seas and wild weather.  She dressed in a smart, ankle-length brown suit to join the ship.

The 24-year old stewardess, a devout Catholic, was reading a Hebrew prayer when the iceberg hit.  She was ordered up on deck and helped the passengers in her charge to go up to the deck.  She was told to get into a lifeboat.  A bundle – a tiny baby –  was suddenly dropped into her lap.  Eight hours later, she was picked up by the Carpathia.  She felt the baby being snatched from her arms and she was very upset that she was never thanked by the baby’s mother.

Jessop then became a Red Cross nurse on the Britannic.  When this ship started sinking after being hit by a German mine, Jessop had to jump to safety.  She was sucked under the keel which struck her head and she then found herself surrounded by severed corpses and badly injured men.  She suffered headaches for years and learned later that she had had a fractured skull.  Jessop thanked her thick reddish-gold hair for saving her life!

The pretty stewardess did marry. Senan Moloney writes  in his article, Violet's Barren White Star Wedding, that she married a fellow steward, John James Lewis, at 36 in London.  The marriage lasted a very short time.  One of her nieces thought that she never stopped carrying a candle for her handsome Australian.

Surprisingly, Jessop continued to serve as a stewardess on ships until she was over 60.  She then retired to a thatched cottage in Suffolk  where she loved to garden.  She died in 1971 aged 84.

An Interesting Interview with Jessop's Niece

The Richest Man on the Titanic

John Jacob Astor IV chose to go to a watery grave in order to save his beautiful and pregnant young wife.  Although he was regarded as ruthless and tough, this act of bravery made Americans see him in a different light.

Born in 1864, Astor was the grandson of America’s first multi-millionaire and so rich that he didn’t regard having one million dollars as being wealthy! This was an enormous amount in those days.  He was the wealthiest man on the Titanic.

Educated at Harvard, he founded the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in partnership with his cousin, William. He was an unusual businessman, however, because he loved to invent.  He invented a bicycle brake, a self-stabilizing steamship chair, and a pneumatic road improver.  He also raised and equipped a battery with smokeless powder guns which was used in the Spanish-American War.  Astor served in the war and became a colonel.

Astor also liked to write and had a science-fiction novel published.  Called A Journey in Other Worlds, it concerned straightening the earth’s axis to create a perpetual springtime.  He was certainly a man of many parts!

The wealthy businessman married Ava Willing and had a son, William Vincent, and a daughter, Ava.  The marriage which was heavily promoted by his parents lasted for 18 years.  However, it grew increasingly bitter and acrimonious and there were accusations of infidelity on both sides.  The couple eventually divorced.

Scandal erupted when Astor, who was over 40, fell in love with an attractive young woman who was a year younger than his son!  He and Madeline Talmadge Force had great difficulty finding a clergyman to marry them.  Eventually they succeeded but the marriage took place at The Beachwood, an old Astor estate, instead of a church.  Madeline also chose not to wear white.

The couple escaped overseas to get away from the rumours and gossip which surrounded them.  They travelled to Egypt and Paris but when they discovered that Madeline was pregnant they decided to return home.  They wanted the child to be an American. The couple booked a first-class voyage on the Titanic.

Legend has it that Astor wanted a place in the lifeboat with his wife but he showed good grace when he was turned away.  However, the crew member said that Astor asked what the number of the lifeboat was.  He may have intended to complain later.  According to other passengers and crew, after his wife got into the lifeboat Astor put as many women as he could into lifeboats and even tried to save the dogs on board.

Astor’s son was so upset about his father’s death that he wanted the wreckage of the ship raised so that he could find his father’s body. John Jacob Astor's second son was born in August, 1912.